necessary. we fill vacant positions until replacements are found. we consult with teachers before assignments in order to improve our classroom effectiveness. our professionalism, experience and dedication help the district achieve its goal of equal access to quality education for all of its students. effectiveness of core substit e substitutes could be improved if their jobs were assigned no later than the night before. that was always practiced before previous years. currently jobs are assigned on the morning of the assignment. despite all reasonable efforts to reach the sights on time. it may be that we arrive late, this creates stress for the school staff and disrupts the student's learning routine. thank you.

>> good evening commissioners. congratulations president norton and vice president fewer. and good evening superintendent. my name is darlene ania, and i am here today in my capacity as vice president of substitutes with uesf. i wish to direct attention to a problem that has impacted our students and schools for the entire fall semester. though initial steps have been taken to remedy this situation, i believe that this is an important issue which should be kind of spotlighted right now. so we don't have this same problem next year. the problem is an i.t. problem. the system was not inputting critical information on the sub-requests.

namely the grade level for elementary schools. and d-level and at times subject area and grade for high schools. this is a real disservice to our schools. to our student and to our substitutes. first graders need a sub who is experienceded with their needs. a spanish world language class needs a sub who is proficient in spanish. enlish language learners needs a sub who is familiar with strategies. it's important that our students not miss out on a day of learning. we bring this to the school board in hopes are a resolution that is long-lasting. i want to thank the district for the corrective action that had has commenced. and thank you to the board for the dedication in serving the students.

and finally i want to tip my hat to the dedicated professionals who are called substitutes and provide a safe learning environment for our students. they fill in for teachers and administrators and enable our district to continue to function. thank you. >> yes, good evening, i am james mccanada, i am a substitute teacher. i am here as a last resort. to prevent the repeat of a substitute staffing problem. that has negatively affected our district elementary school students and middle school for the last four months. board members should have received my e-mail days ago. there has been a slight change, that i will elaborate on in a

moment. this has several consequences that are preventible. due to the substitute system failing to provide information. students and schools have suffered needlessly in many ways. first students often receive improper substitutes. and substitutes occasionally unknowing accepted 6-12 assignments. a substitute was attacked with a chair with in a classroom that she believed to be younger schools. she never accepts middle school

assignments. this created a truly untangible situation. yesterday grade level information started to appear in the system for the first time this year. i have not heard it mentioned on the phone-based system yet, but this is a good sign. this is a long four months appealing to the district quite frankly for sanity to be restored. as for every other year, the same problem will happen this summer unless changes are made to the software. i am informed that all grade levels get a raise. and i am sure that computer software can be purchased to prevent this. it's critally -- critically

important that the needless harm is prevented. nothing will change unless this problem is tackled immediately. for our students and staff, a lose situation needs to be a win/win situation. we can do it. thank you. >> okay, i had one more name. bart lancelotti. >> he had already addressed. >> thank you. i have two more names. rose ann anderson, and barb beberwik. the time is two minutes each. >> mine is an individual problem and not general. i am rose ann anderson, my grandson came here from maryland and was in advanced classes in

maryland. his assignment in san francisco was visation valley or martin luther king. he's maintained a 3.7 gpa and is not challenged. he has almost no homework and no projects. the gate program seems to be unorganized and communication with the teachers has resulted in little change. in order to reach martin luther king, kesean must take two buses results in a one-hour commute each way. we live five blocks from (inaudible) middle school. he was registered this december with abstos, we were understood that these schools were banned. his father was told that he

would have no information about waiting list until march 2013, really, the list does not all right exist? what are the options for a solid student in this system? how can we get a good education for kesean? how can we plan alternative for what is not providing him with a challenged or adequate education? any places for me to pursue this? >> we have you get with the chief of staff, and have the middle schools to follow up with you. >> to whom do i give this? thank you. >> good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board of education. i hope you remember me from last

time. two minutes was not enough. i am back. i would like to address any questions you have concerning nonviolent parenting and what is the obstacle of having these installed in the schools. the problem question is what happens when a child makes a mistake over and over. the response to that question is that you make a new rule until that child continues the behavior. and they compensate their victims, and being punitive. hopefully this is a behavior they will adopt as adults. another frequently asked question, what is a mistake. we define a mistake for a small child as dangerous or destru destructive. as they get older we expand mistake in ethical violations and moral violations and behavior contrary to law, and

explaining the concept of moral imperative to a child. so they know when to make an ethical violation than the moral and imperative. that is it's already to lie to save your life. i would like to field questions concerning nonviolent parenting. anyone with a question? >> unfortunately we are not able to engage in a dialogue on this topic. we can't discuss items not on the agenda. this is your time to talk to us. >> how can i get on your agenda? >> that's a good question. >> here is my information yet once again. i would love to get on your agenda. i would be happy to meet with anyone on this topic. i think that it can decrease the level of violence in the schools

and increase test scores. please contact me with the next step of this important topic. thank you very much. >> okay. thank you very much. we are now going to move to item k. advisory committee reports and appointments by board members. any appointments this evening? seeing none. i am pleased to introduce our elections commission report. delivered by our election commission appointee, catalina ruiz-healy. you can sit here. if you would like. >> good evening. superintendent, and new president and vice president and

commissioners. thanks for having me. i was honored to receive your appointment in march, 2011, to be your appointee to the commission for the san francisco election department. you have received a memo from me. and i can go over it quickly, and i hope you had a chance to read it. but basically the city charter authorizes the election commission to supervisor the elections. and we are charged with a fairly narrow scope of work, for generally setting the department of elections and for the proper administration of the department. so the budget and we hire and fire the department of elections. so take a breath here. the way that the commission works on their on and off years. in 2011 our work focused on operations and less on policy.

because we are getting ready to implement elections in the even years. and so we oversaw three elections since i have been commissioner. one primary. and two consolidated elections. and i am pleased to report they were all three administered freely and fairly. that is global standing for running good elections. and we have focused on the appointment of the three members of the redistricting task force. and moving and encouraging the ranked choice voting results to be reported earlier. and finally encouraging voter registration. for me it was younger people in the city of san francisco. since i was appointed. i was appointed to the budget and oversight election committee. the only working committee of

the board where we are tasked with the election plan and budget. on redistricting task force appointments. we created the criteria that is outline on the second page of the report. we were one of the three bodies that made three appointments. the other two were the board of supervisors and the mayor. so we sought to appoint three individuals that are active in san francisco community but not active in a political manner. we received 20 applications. interviewed 18. and appointed three. this is the june, 2011 meeting. the second big issue we worked on was the release schedule. you may remember a few election cycles ago. when i first joined it was

policy to release the results the following friday after that tuesday. and now we are reporting them that same evening. that was a great win for us. finally, youth engagement and boosting voter registration and turn-out. there was great occurrences this year. we are far from the record turn-out level in 2008. and we dipped in voter registration significantly. and only recovered barely. and part of how we recovered that the secretary of state of california implemented online. you can register now online. and if you have the same address, if your driver's license current with your current address, all you have to do is nothing, just press submit and you are registered to vote. and 30,000 people were

registered this way, and 30% of those were between the ages of 18-24. this is a great way to register younger people. the department outreached to high schools and colleges for voter registration. surprising to me, they are the back-bone of the worker program. so san francisco high school students man 520 out of the 573 polling places. and they provide the bulk of the bilingual and language services to the san francisco department of elections on election day. a few competitive statistics if you will. the high school with the highest percentage of election day workers was thurgood marshall with 74% of their kids

registering. 74 turned up. that was great. lincoln and galileo and lowell was part of this program. i want to thank the students for this. i want to reach out to the families and the k-12 and universities. san francisco state we were able to register 3,000 students. and we had the highest number of provisional ballots. we had 600 on that campus. and so this upcoming year we have a few things on the agenda.

the department of director is up for review. that is starting in may, and we are starting work on that already. the director is interested in improving accessibility issues. s -- we have requirements of the machines old. and we have received complaints of voters not able to access the cards or not seeing the ballots. so we will work on that this coming year. and is the other issue is the issue of privacy around voter information. one of the big of the challenges that the department has is to be sure that people get the information they need to vote. many voters prefer this information to be kept private. we have to figure out a way to either have an e-mail or phone

number. it serves two purposes. one is to verify their identify if a ballot is lost. and two it improves the costs of cards sent out. when 30% of san franciscans now vote by mail. we are trying to figure that changing challenge out. i stand for questions. >> i want to thank you very much. as you know sort of made this an issue about us getting reports from our appointee. just because obviously this is really important information. we never had it in this form before. and i appreciate that. and and i particularly appreciate that so much of your report highlights the participation of schools and the students in working at the polling places. which is fantastic. i am happy to hear about that.

that's great. i want to thank you, and i want to thank you for coming and making the report. and have allowing us the opportunity to know about the commission. and why it's important that we have an appointee. i want to thank you for that. and i want to ask a general question. i am very -- you know i have talked to a lot of people about this idea whether there are discussion among people election experts why we don't do vote by mail. not just us, but that's what they do in oregon and as i have seen this grow around the state. and the issue of accessibility. and the bizarre habit we have in the united states of having election day on a work day. and all kinds of things that are calculated to minimize participation in elections. i don't know, i wondered whether

the commission or people that are actually, this is what they do with their public life. >> there is a rapid debate going on about that. one of the challenges of the vote by mail, while it's cheaper, it makes some assumptions about the voter. and that's that they have a fixed address. and that is often not the case. so you kind of have to overcompensate. so the way that -- so san francisco takes voter participation seriously. we make sure that you get three notices in the mail. >> sorry, don't mean to interrupt. this is all voting registration presumes you have a fixed address? >> yes, getting the information. when you are registered, you are getting your ballot. if you have moved, for example, students face this problem. they don't get their ballot often where they live in that

moment. so they are not able to vote. that's why we have a polling place to vote by professional ballot. >> i don't want to go, really the answer to my question is yes, you are talking about. and that's what i wanted to know, and i am glad that is ongoing. and i really appreciate that we in san francisco have continued our commitment to making voting more accessible to people by having early voting. as well as vote by mail, and you can vote in city hall. and all of those kinds of things. there were in the past voting in public houses places and things like that. i just think that it seems to me that our votes habits and laws and regulations are fairly stuck in the past. and i am interested in whatever

we can do to encourage forward movement and progress in that area. and again thank you for your service and report. >> thank you very much for this very thorough report. i think it's really important to have a document that summarizes all the tremendous work you have put in. as our representative. i have two requests. i would love to have you connect with our parent advisory council. and to meet those members and talk about your role, as well as the student and advisory council. i think it would be great to do outreach with our policy bodies about this important work. >> thank you. i too want to thank you. and in particular i want to thank you for the outreachestou -- efforts that the commission has been doing. with the youth.

having spoken to the youth in the polling locations and the opportunities they had. it was an interesting process for them to go through. and for them to watch and observe and learn at the actual polling place. and i think just the registration in the colleges was tremendous. and i am sure that many of our newly and reelected colleagues appreciate that as well. what is your term? >> my term expired january 1. but before we go to the term thing. i wanted to emphasize the work of the department. john arnston and his team have tremendous resources. the guy runs a great shop. it's a machine. and he improves the process every time. he does postpomortum and tries figure out what we can do and to figure out the outreach.

my term has expired on january 1, i am in the hold-over phase and that expires on march 1. >> in march 1 we have the opportunity to ask you to stay on? >> correct, i would be honored if that is possible. >> we will talk about that. commissioner maufas. >> thank you, and i apologize that i wasn't here, catalina, but i was listening in the back. and i want to comment on what commissioner wynns said, we haven't had a report like this, and you set the standard. were you able to share this with your other colleagues? >> yes, and i attached the annual report at the time president matthews put together. current president, gleason hasn't been able to put together an annual report.

but this is a report and my help in department. >> again, it's great. and it's so thorough and helpful for us to understand. usually we put someone in this space and they leave us. and next we know that we get's letter from the commission that we need to appoint someone. and there has been a life change in that spot. again thrilled it's you. and this is amazing work. and i talked to you in the interim. i am thrilled about all the outreach that you participate in. and i really am glad that commission has indicated and suggested meeting with the student advisory council, and i know that the student council has a meeting and if your schedule allows. that particular meeting with a combination would be amazing and beneficial. >> thank you.

>> okay. anyone else? no. i will get better at this, everyone. i am making sure i don't miss anyone. i want to take the suggestion that we put your reappointment on a future rules committee agenda. so that the rules committee can make a recommendation. i will spit ball here and think there would be significant support for your reappointment, but we will discuss it. >> and that will apropos as catalina is getting married next month, in number. >> who knew. >> yeah. >> i meant it. >> thank you very much for the report. i want to echo what everyone else said. it's wonderful and very in-depth. thank you for the work. >> thank you.

>> okay. we are on item l. special order of business. the instructional calendar for the 2013-14 school year. i need a motion. >> so moved. >> second. >> thank you. a reading of the recommendation by superintendent designee. >> thank you, president norton. this is an annual item that comes before the board. and i am happy to say that we are on schedule for the first board meeting in january. and i want to thank all of our labor partners and the pac organizations and the community group and all the district departments. and the assistant superintendents that provided input and feedback from the calendar that all calendars are based. the requested action is that the

board adopt the 2013-14 instruct instructional calendar. >> okay, any questions or comments. >> i have a question, can you tell me if this includes forced closure days? >> commissioner murase. if you look at the january -- sorry, the june first day in june, june 2. we have reached an agreement with united educators for a two-year agreement. and both years have one-and-a-half of forced closure days. the half closure day is on the last day of school, noted on may 30. and then june 2 is the professional development day which also is a forced closure for our teachers. that's a furlough day. so